PRISM: WE ARE ALL ENEMIES OF THE STATE, BUT DOES ANYONE EVEN CARE?

It was a top story on newscasts, news sites, newspapers, and more, but will the American public have any reaction to PRISM? The story didn't get as much attention as Angelina Jolie's boob-job, or Kim Kardashian's pregnancy, but at least the mainstream media has finally made an effort to cover the issue of government spying (maybe because they've recently fallen victim to government spying).

But will it change anything? Does the public even care?

I can't count how many people I've spoken to about NSA whistleblowers, ThinThread, warrantless surveillance and its huge increase over the past few years, the PATRIOT Act, the Protect America Act, and the terrible nightmares I have because of all this. I've been called "crazy", "paranoid", a "conspiracy nut", and so on. Even after the news broke about PRISM, people still said I was a whack-job. They weren't interested in the story, and many still don't believe it. To me, that's the scariest part of it all. Hardly anyone cares.

This is where the magic happens.

Should we tell them everyone is a target? Should we let them know this has been going on since 2001, not 2007? Or that the government is downplaying the amount of data it keeps? Would anyone care that this spying has been used to take down government officials? They'd probably only care if it was a reality show.

Maybe we should give out copies of Enemy of the State, which did a superb job of outlining government spying capabilities while referencing actual NSA history and techniques. Even in 1998 they were just about spot on. Replace the satellites with ARGUS drones and it could be a documentary. Could Will Smith open everyone's eyes?

It's doubtful. The government will continue expanding its power and slowly leaking the information to test the waters. Each time they'll be taking more and more of our privacy, and the public will remain distracted by same-sex marriages, Duck Dynasty, fast food prices, getting drunk, or whatever else they think it so much more important than basic privacy rights.

If you're interested in maintaining any of your privacy, we recommend smashing all your electronics, selling your car, and heading off into the woods somewhere.

THE EMAILS OF A PATRIOT 2

A while back, we posted a collection of emails from a fellow conspiracy theorist. Since then, we haven't heard much from him. We assume he's been laying low; he often disconnects for months at a time. We recently received a couple emails from him and thought we would share.

Send us an e-mail of your own.

5/16/13 - "Hi Observers"
If you saw this what message would you take? The main debate with DMS5 is the way they classify mental disorders on their surface appearance not on the underlying biology. Appearance can be deceiving.

This photo was attached to the email.

5/18/13 - "Just published"
The following was included in a text document attached to an email. We are unsure of the source; this may be The Patriot's own work, or a forwarded message.

Sunshine without burning is good.

Objective: To explore the association of nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) and Alzheimer disease (AD) in the Einstein Aging Study, an epidemiologic study of aging in New York City.

Methods: Community-residing volunteers aged 70 years or older were assessed annually, followed by multidisciplinary diagnostic consensus. Cancer status and type was obtained by self-report. Cox proportional hazards models were used to test associations between NMSC and subsequent risk of developing a neurocognitive disorder. To deduce a biologically specific association between AD and NMSC, we considered 3 nested outcomes groups: only AD (probable or possible AD as the sole diagnosis), any AD (probable AD or possible AD, as well as mixed AD/vascular dementia), and all-cause dementia.

Results: We followed 1,102 adults with a mean age of 79 years at enrollment. Prevalent NMSC was associated with reduced risk of only AD (hazard ratio = 0.21; 95% confidence interval = 0.051–0.87; p = 0.031) among subjects after adjustment for demographics, hypertension, diabetes, and coronary heart disease. APOE ε4 genotypes were available in 769 individuals. The association was similar in magnitude, but nonsignificant, when the number of APOE ε4 alleles was included in the model. No significant association was found between NMSC and subsequent development of any AD or all-cause dementia.

Conclusions: This population-based longitudinal study shows that individuals older than 70 years with NMSC have a significantly reduced risk of developing AD compared with individuals without NMSC. We deduce Alzheimer-specific neuroprotection, because the effect is attenuated or eliminated when considering less-specific diagnoses such as AD with another diagnosis (any AD) or all-cause dementia.